


Susurrus

by lady_mab



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Changelings, Deal with a Devil, F/M, Gen, teenage angst, wirt goes into the unknown alone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_mab/pseuds/lady_mab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wirt takes a tumble over the wall of the Eternal Garden, and finds himself stuck between two places -- neither really alive, nor dead. Deals are struck and hearts are broken, and maybe, just maybe, he'll find enough courage to get out of there alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Taoi teanntaithe go síoraí ins an láib, do mhuineál tachtaithe  
> le sreanganna lobelia. Chím do mhílí ag stánadh orm  
> gan tlás as gach poll snámha, as gach lochán, Ophelia.  
> \- [AN BHÁBÓG BHRISTE](http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/8180/auto/THE-BROKEN-DOLL) (Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill)

“This is it,” Wirt said, kicking at the pebble in his path and tossing his hands dramatically into the air. The headlights from a passing car caught him in the moment, and cast his striking silhouette against the brick wall. It would have made a fine photograph, had someone been there to care enough to capture the incident. “This is officially the worst day of my life.”

Which was saying a lot, because each day leading up to that always seemed like the worst. There was the time when his father died, when he was only six, and no one told him what happened. Or when his mother remarried, when he was nine. Or when he got the younger brother he never wanted shortly thereafter. (Would he have wanted a little sister? Hm. He’d have to think about that one.)

Those were all pretty awful days. Yet nothing -- _no-thing_ \-- compared to how horrible this was.

“Sara has the tape and she’s going to listen to it and she’s going to _mock me_.” Not that he could blame her. He would mock himself had he been in the position to do so. At the moment, the only position he had was to find somewhere suitable to shrivel up and die. “And _Jason Funderberker_ will be there with her. Laughing together. At my misery. Together. The two of them. Forever.”

Wirt stumbled and just barely managed to catch himself on the rough edge of the wall. Maybe it would be better if he hadn’t. Then at least he would have a sore nose to distract himself from his sore heart after he face-planted onto the cement.

His phone vibrated in his back pocket, and he had to scramble with the makeshift Halloween cloak in order to reach it. Upon seeing the screen, he groaned. “Hi, Mom.”

“ _Wirt, where is your brother?_ ”

“Er--” He glanced over his shoulder, even though he knew the six-year old wasn’t trailing along behind him. “Wasn’t he with Mrs. Daniels?”

“ _I already called her. She said he left with you when you were at the football game_.”

He started to say that he never went to the football game, because he didn’t, but technically he had. And he wasn’t about to lie to his mother. “Oh, yeah. I was a little distracted.”

“ _Go find him. You know how he likes to wander off._ ”

Wirt grumbled to himself, finding another pebble to kick down the sidewalk. “Yeah, just like his dad...”

“ _What did you say?_ ”

His heart leapt into his throat. He hadn’t even realized he had said that outloud. “Nothing, Mom! I’ll go look. He’s probably still at the football game.” He ended the call before she could start scolding him about leaving his brother behind. He started to smack the back of his phone against his forehead. “Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid--”

“Hey, Wirt!”

He yelped in a very undignified manner, the sound squeaking out through a tight throat. He leaped a few inches in the air, and his phone leaped out of his hand in the process. “Greg! Jesus Christ-- ah, my phone!”

It clattered to the cement and the two brothers looked down at it with varying degrees of interest.

As Greg bent over it, the tea kettle on his head somehow remaining in place, Wirt slapped his hands to his face and dragged his fingers down his cheeks.

“Wow. This sucks. This sucks so much! I can’t even tweet this to the twitter I don’t have because what is the point in having one?! And now my phone is broken!” His horror wore off long enough for him to realize that Greg was attempting to only destroy his phone further. “Hey, give that back!”

“It still works!” Greg surrendered it all the same, then pulled out the toy cellphone he carried around with him. “Better than mine does. Paging Doctor Cucumber. Come in, Doctor Cucumber!” The little boy made a collection of sounds that might have been an explosion and people dying in agony before holding out the phone. “See?”

“That’s because it’s a toy, Greg. It’s not supposed to work.” Wirt fiddled with the phone a bit longer, only to discover that yes, it did still work, before once again shoving his cloak out of the way to put it back into his pocket. “Come on. It’s time to get you home.”

“What about Sara the Bee? Don’t you want to see if she got your tape?” Greg followed along after him, swinging his limbs in wide arcs in order to keep up with his brother’s long-legged strides. “I bet she would be excited!”

A sound of frustration ripped out of his mouth and he pushed his hat back to grab his hair. “No one in their right mind would be excited for that, Greg! Who the hell even makes mix tapes anymore? Like, who has a cassette player these days?”

“You do!”

“Yes, I do, and that’s the first problem. A _mix tape_ , you understand? I’m not from the 80’s!”

“Hey!” Greg shouted, pointing a finger into the night sky -- a tie between being personally offended by Wirt’s statement and having a mind-changing revelation. “Don’t hate on the 80’s!”

He smiled despite himself and rapped his knuckles against the tea kettle. “C’mon, Greg.”

* * *

They walked together a bit further before Wirt started to panic again.

Greg, ever ready with the well-minded, if not ill-planned, rescue, suggested they should go get the tape back.

At the time, it had seemed like a brilliant idea.

* * *

Somehow or another, in his fit of melodrama, he had lost Greg and gotten himself lost as well. He shouldn’t have listened. He shouldn’t have considered the idea of even making the tape in the first place, but, well, that was done. He shouldn’t have shown it to Greg out by the stadium, because he had thought _what’s the harm_.

Plenty of harm, apparently. Jesus, how much terror could one step-brother cause? Enough to land him on the porch of the house party he wasn’t invited to.

It wasn’t the ‘not being invited part’ that stung (though he had to admit to an odd little flip of his stomach when the cluster of people turned and said ‘hi Wirt’ to him like it was nothing, like he belonged, like his invitation had honestly been lost in the mail and they were glad he could make it). It was the fact that Greg was too young to know ‘social conduct’ and the hierarchy of high school. It was the fact that he could walk right in to that house and start talking to people without a care in the world.

Oh, if only he could be that ignorant -- wandering blissfully unaware through life and unaware of the meaning behind the sideways stares. But alas, he grew up.

(Wirt wondered briefly if Peter Pan had it right all along -- that growing up _sucks_ and that he should stay a young and innocent kid forever, dreaming big dreams, and killing pirates in his spare time whenever he was bored.)

He had tried, twice, to get the tape back. Both times failed. And then Sara left, saying something along the lines of _are you coming?_ and of course he had replied with _no, not tonight, maybe another time, go have fun._

Her and _Jason Funderberker._

He didn’t even know where they were going. It all just sort of became white noise humming in his ears when he remained around people too long. He saw Sara’s mouth moving, couldn’t read her lips (not that he was thinking about her lips or anything, no, that’s ridiculous, how could you suggest such a thing), didn’t comprehend the words she might have been saying.

Greg had disappeared the moment he ran into the house to stop his younger brother from messing things up. Perhaps it was because he had been blindsided ( _Hi, Wirt_ , they said, casual smiles and a few waves), or perhaps he was so focused on the idea of _Find Sara, get the tape, leave -- preferably all without actually FINDING Sara_ that he never noticed.

Because when he left, dejected, tapeless, and having actually FOUND Sara, he realized that he was actually brotherless as well.

This was it. This exact moment. This was the end.

Twice in one night. How could he manage to lose an obnoxious six-year-old twice in one night?! People should have been running to him, begging him to take Greg off their hands because _you’re his brother right? That’s what you’re supposed to do._

That’s what he was supposed to do: Take care of Greg.

One simple task, even more simple than attempting to retrieve a hideously, horribly heart-felt mix-tape that shouldn’t exist during this or any lifetime. And he had fucked it up.

He slapped his hands to his cheeks, dragged his fingers down his face, and wished he could just claw off his skin because _that_ would at least distract him for awhile.

“Mom is going to kill me.”

* * *

He wandered around, lost, alone, confused, until he found himself in the graveyard.

It was only ironic because he wanted to drop dead the moment he entered there. Because, in the graveyard, he found everyone else he had been looking for.

He found Greg, trumpeting around like he was supposed to be an elephant. He found Sara, still wearing her jacket, still (likely) unaware of the tape in her pocket. He found Jason Funderberker’s hand covering hers in the most casual way possible.

And everyone was laughing, eyes turned in his direction.

(Everything else they were saying was lost in a wash of static the colors started to blur he couldn’t tell one person from another the faces were running together and all he knew was that they were laughing laughing _laughing at him_.)

He wanted to die.

Right then and there, may God strike him down -- _he wanted to die._

* * *

Wirt was halfway to the far side of the cemetery by the time the cop cruiser rolled up, headlights flashing on the gathering of children.

* * *

Oh. Shit.

This was it. He might have thought that before, stumbling down the street with the cheers from the football game echoing behind him. He might have thought it while watching Sara take her jacket from his searching hands with a smile and a thanks. He might have thought it any number of times, but this was really it.

Irrationally, his first thought was, “I’m too young to go to jail.”

The second was, “I’m all alone.”

And the third, which came when he jerked back in surprise as the door to the cop car opened, was, “I’m going to fall.”

Wirt’s stomach flipped as his center of gravity shifted to the far side of the wall. He didn’t know what he had been planning as he scrambled up that wall of the graveyard. Maybe he was supposed to jump down and creep around it and ditch the costume. His face was plain enough he could get away unnoticed.

But then he was tipping backwards over the high stone wall and his fear scattered. His pulse pounded beneath his skin, his heart struggled in the confines of his ribs, but despite everything, he wasn’t afraid.

In the distance, through the rushing of blood in his ears and the stillness that came with the realization of _fuck it_ , someone cried out his name.

His shoulders hit the ground first, a jolt of pain going straight up his spine to the back of his head -- which hit the ground next. His legs flipped over his head and he ended up sprawled out on his stomach, a mouthful of dead leaves and dirt, a pounding headache, a split lip, but otherwise alive.

Wirt wheezed into the earth, trying to tug the air that had been knocked out of his lungs back in. He stumbled as he pushed himself to his feet, reeling one way and another as the world tilted past him.

A mixture of disappointment and giddy freedom washed over him. “I’m alive,” he said, tasting blood from where he bit his tongue and the grit of dirt in his teeth. Laughter started to spill out of his mouth, and he pumped his fists into the air. “Take that!”

Who he was shouting at, he had no idea, but it felt good to shout it anyway.

The ground beneath his feet started rattling, and he was very nearly upended back onto his rear. He glanced down, at the old and worn train tracks, and wondered if what he thought was happening actually was.

A whistle, long and loud, screeched at him as the light bore down at too fast a speed to even calculate. When was the last time this track was even used?

Still, he stumbled backwards, tripping over his own wobbling legs and untied shoelace and, for the second time in less than five minutes, was sent tumbling down. He jarred his shoulder against a rock as he fell, probably dislocating it as the force of the passing train only spurred his descent.

The world was nothing but a whirlwind of pain until he hit the lake. Then, the cold stole everything straight from his body. He gasped, and his mouth filled with water.

The heavy weight of his cloak (how had he not lost it?!) dragged him down, despite his desperate struggle to break the surface.

The half-moon grinned down at him through the choppy surface of the water. It grinned and grinned as he reached for it.

A hand, colder than the ice water, wrapped around the back of his neck. Wirt choked, gasped, inhaled more water. The moon got smaller and smaller until it was a fractured pearl, until it was nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

_Boy,_ a voice rasped into his ear. _What do you wish for?_

(I don’t want to die.)

_There’s nothing for you up there._

No, there wasn’t. But that didn’t mean much. Nothing meant much, most of all his life, but it was still something. It was still his.

(I don’t want to die.)

_I think it’s a little too late for that._

His body gulped, involuntarily, and all it tasted was silt and water. Too late, huh?

_Perhaps..._

If he was dead, then Wirt wondered what part of him was straining so hard, clinging to the end of that sentence.

_Perhaps we can make a deal._

(Define deal.)

_You help me, I’ll help you. What do you have to argue with? You say no, you’re still dead. You say yes, you’re alive._

He couldn’t argue with that. He couldn’t do much, but that was beyond the point.

(Please. Please, I don’t want to die.)

_Then you won’t._


	3. Chapter 3

Wirt rubbed the back of his head, rolled his shoulders, and tasted a sharp, bitter spice flooding his mouth. What in the hell did he eat?

His stomach rumbled, and he pressed a hand to it in a pointless attempt to quiet it. _When_ was the last time he ate?

When he took a step, his right foot squelched inside his shoe.

“Oh, gross, my socks are wet.” He knelt down to investigate, but the canvas of his sneaker was dry, as was the sock beneath it. Curious, he shifted his foot about, but nothing further happen. “Hm, or not...?”

Wirt took several more steps before he stopped. He turned and looked at the late autumnal light filter down through the trees, the gentle birdsong in the distance, and a distinct lack of human activity. “Where... am I?” (He often found that voicing questions aloud made him feel not so alone when there was no one else nearby.)

He fumbled with his cloak, growling in frustration as it tangled around his arms like an unwelcome visitor giving him a hug. He tugged his phone out from his back pocket, wondered over the smooth screen for a moment without understanding why, and brought up the display. The time read 8:32 PM across the screen, even though it was far too bright out to be that late in the afternoon this late in the year. There was no service, which was sort of expected but still a disappointment. The battery was at 83 percent. Plenty of time left to find some civilization and, more importantly, a cell tower.

It took a moment before he realized that the wallpaper had changed, to something that very well might have been the backside of a frog. “Ughhh... Greg, you idiot. When did you do that?” Wirt went into the settings, about to change the screen back to one of the default images when he paused. While the only pictures in his gallery were predominantly ones Greg had taken of himself and a frog (so the idiot was the culprit after all), with a scant few of his family and even scanter few of Sara, it felt a shame to go back to one of the cheerful defaults.

The forest, serene and warm, but lonely and removed, fit his mood quite well.

Wirt looked around for something to take a picture of. Not far off, a little bluebird sat on one of the branches and looked at him (like, really _looked_ at him in a way that was rather unnerving but he did his best to ignore). Figuring that made a good a picture as any, he lifted his phone and snapped the moment.

As he turned back to the screen, a prissy female voice called out to him. “You know, it’s very rude to take people’s pictures without their permission.”

His head jerked up, looking around for the source of the voice. “Who’s there?”

“Up here, idiot.”

While he was used to being called an idiot, and used to being shorter than other boys (and some girls) his age, and hell, even used to that tone of voice, the three of them combined while in the middle of the forest when _no one was around_ was disconcerting. “Um...”

“Yoo-hoo, over here. Come on, you can’t be that dumb.”

Arguably, he could, but that wasn’t the time. Instead, he kept looking, right past the bluebird that ruffed its wings in his direction. It couldn’t be the bird, even if it was the only living thing.

Perhaps someone was hiding in one of the trees. Directly below the bird. And it was that person’s presence that was disturbing the bird so.

“I can’t see you. Can you come out of your hiding spot?”

There was a distressed sigh, full of frustration with the world at large, and then the bluebird fluttered off the branch and flew to hove straight in front of his face. “This good enough for you, you blind idiot?”

Five heartbeats passed, thudding loudly in his ears, before his brain caught up with what he was attempting to understand.

A very loud, very ungraceful shout of surprise sprung forth from his mouth, and he stumbled back several steps before landing hard on his butt. Somehow, he managed to at least keep his grip on his phone. “You’re a bird.”

“Yes. A bluebird.”

“You can’t talk.”

“As you can see, I certainly can.”

“No, I mean, logically. Scientifically. You can’t talk. I mean, you can chirp at best, but your brain isn’t cut out for human speech -- neither are your vocal chords and your beak. If you were part of the corvine or psittacines family, for instance, sure, I might not be as surprised you could spout some mimicked or learned lines. There’s no way you could string together sentences unaided.” Wirt immediately clammed up after the last of the words fell from his mouth. He himself had a hard time stringing together sentences, but the bird didn’t have to know that. The bird shouldn’t even be able to understand him. “Why am I even talking to a bird?”

She, for it was the source of the voice and he figured that her plumage was less than colorful to denote the female gender, cocked her head to the side and did a surprisingly decent job and letting him know she was frowning. “The rules are different here, kid.”

“Kid?!” he spluttered, despite his determination to not hold a conversation with a bluebird. “I’m not a kid. I’ll have you know I’m turning sixteen soon.”

“Whoop-dee-do, see if I care. Like I told you: Rules are different here. Soon is relative. Comparatively, you’re a kid.” Her feathered brow quirked into a narrowed expression of displeasure. “I’ve been seventeen for awhile, but you’d never tell.”

“No,” Wirt replied flatly. “Because you’re a bird. A long time for you is probably like a month or something. Ow--hey!”

The bird pecked at his nose a second time. “Rude.”

He covered his face, checking to make sure it wasn’t bleeding before glaring at her. “What? It’s a fact.” He winced and swatted at her as she made to peck him again. “Stop that!”

“Hold on, I think your brain is suffocating under that stupid hat of yours. I was hoping to open up some holes so it could breathe better.” Still, she settled onto a low-hanging branch close to him and ruffled her feathers.

Self-conscious, even when faced by a rather rude bluebird, Wirt tugged the hat off his head and turned the red cone around and around in his fingers. His grip left faint indents in the felt, and he wondered if he should feel more disappointed for destroying a Santa hat. He shrugged the cloak closer to his shoulders, despite the hindrance it caused. It at least managed to disguise his scrawny arms and torso. The blue fabric pooled around him as he sat with his knees drawn up to his chest.

There was a long pause, during which she preened her feathers and he finished setting the wallpaper on his phone to the picture -- because despite everything, it was a nice picture.

Then he looked up and heaved a sigh, because his mother had taught him to be polite, especially to women, though he wasn’t too sure if it still applied to a mean-spirited bluebird that just happened to be female “Um, well, do you have a name?”

This managed to catch her by surprise, or at least, he figured it was by surprise. It was hard to read expressions on a bird. “It’s... Beatrice.”

“That’s a nice name,” he said, just barely managing to not tack on _for a bird_ to the end of his sentence. “I’m Wirt.”

Despite his attempts at being nice, she regarded with him an even wider-eyed look of surprise -- and then snorted in amusement. An actual, very human sounding, snort. “Oh. Uh--”

“Yeah, don’t even try to reassure me. It’s been fifteen years. I’ve heard it all.”

“Is it short for anything?” She couldn’t contain the trace of laughter that lingered in her tone.

His shoulders slumped and he gripped the red hat tighter. “No. Just that. Just Wirt.”

“Do people ever call you a worry-Wirt?”

“That... admittedly, I’ve never heard that one before, though I suppose that it describes me perfectly.” He couldn’t help but feel a little insulted that this amused a strange bird so much, especially one with such a nice name like _Beatrice_. “My brother has a normal name. I mean: Gregory. How much more normal than--”

His voice crackled and died like a bad radio connection. A part of his brain was distantly aware that Beatrice was trying to say something, but he was more focused on trying to catch up to his current predicament. He was on his feet in an instant, wavering in his spot. Uncertain of which way to start moving.

“Wirt? Are you okay?”

“My brother--” he gasped, looking down at his phone as if it would tell him the answer. “Where’s Greg?! Where am I?” He jerked around in a half circle, attempting to figure out something -- anything -- from the surrounding area. “We don’t have woods like these by home...”

The bird didn’t say anything. She merely watched him with an expression he couldn’t read (of course he couldn’t read it, she’s a bird for God’s sake!) on her perch a few steps away.

He glanced at his phone again, though he had to do a double take when he realized what time it was. “It’s still... a little after eight thirty.” He spun around so fast that he nearly gave himself whiplash. “What is going on? Why does my phone still have the same time?” He shook it, holding it next to his ear in hopes of hearing water slosh around inside (why would he be expecting water?).

Beatrice landed on his head and pecked it a few times until he was forced to stop and attempt to knock her off. “Do you want answers or do you want to keep freaking out?”

Wirt didn’t have the breath necessary to reply to her, nor could he see her face to plead with her -- implore her to give him the information that he needed. All he could do was nod, mute and gasping.

She waited until his shoulders stopped heaving and then patted his forehead with a wing. “Better?”

“A bit.” He couldn’t even wince at the way his voice cracked. “I’m not anywhere near home, am I?”

The sigh that she made could very easily have come from a girl’s mouth. “No, I’m sorry. You made a deal with the Beast.”

“A... deal?” Tucking his hat under his arm, Wirt reached up and scooped Beatrice into his hands. He held her in front of his face so that he could at least try to make sense of her strangely human expressions. “What sort of deal?”

“Your life is what you got in return.” Her wings moved in a shrug. “Since you’re here, it seems he hasn’t asked anything from you in return.”

“Is... that meant to be comforting?”

“Well, you’re alive. Sort of. Okay, scratch that, alive isn’t the best term.”

Wirt laughed. Despite everything, he laughed so hard that he was forced to drop the hat as he doubled over and gripped his knees.

Beatrice spring from his palms before he could crush her, hovering uncertainly in the air in front of him. “Uhh... did you finally crack?”

“Probably!” He tossed his hands in the air and never felt more lost than he did in that moment. “I’m probably at home in bed and this is all just a crazy dream. And I’ll wake up in the morning and things will be normal. I won’t be talking to a bluebird, I wouldn’t have tried to delude into thinking I could talk to Sara--”

“Sara?”

He waved her off without even realizing what he was doing. His feet started to carry him in a tight circle, using the red hat as a focal point for his radius. Around and around until he didn’t even know which way he had come from anymore.

He stopped so suddenly that he had to ground his heels into the forest floor in order to keep himself from pitching forward. “Where is this?”

She flew to hover before his face, visibly hesitating before she said, “The Unknown.”

“You must be kidding me.”

“Well think about it this way: You could be dead.”

He considered this for a long moment. “Do you know how I came to be here? Beyond making this... deal with the Beast.” Wirt held out a hand so she could land in his palm.

“I do not, I’m sorry.” She sounded genuinely so, small dark eyes downcast. “There are many different ways to end up here.”

“How did you get here?”

The irritation was back, and her tiny talons pricked his skin as she hopped irritably in place. “You don’t ask a lady that sort of question.”

“You’re not a lady, you’re a bluebird--ow!”

Beatrice returned to her perch on the branch as Wirt stuck his injured hand to his mouth. “You’ll be surprised at the number of things you don’t know about this place, Wirt. And it will do you some good if you learn to stop insulting individuals who are only trying to help.”

He glanced from his hand to her. “How is pecking me helping?”

Her feathers ruffled in response. “I’m saying that I’ve been asked to take you to Adelaide of the Pasture. She’s the good woman of these woods, and she wants to help you.”

Wirt thought about his not-wet sock and his not-broken screen and his heart that only seemed to beat when he thought about it. He thought about the deal he made without knowing the full circumstances. He reached for the hat again just to have something to worry between his fingers. “And what does she want in return?”

Beatrice’s feathers puffed out even further. “She wants to help you out of the goodness of her heart, and you had better appreciate that. Not many people will go against the Beast, but she is one of them. It is good to have Adelaide on your side.”

“Do you work for her?”

Her head quirked to the side, and he tried and failed to read her expression. “Yes,” she said, after far too long for it to be that simple. “Will you follow me?”

“What if I want to go on my own.”

“Not even the Beast’s deal can protect you here, even if this is his forest. He kept you from dying, but that’s no guarantee that he will do it again.” With a beat of her wings, she darted around the clearing before hovering near the right-hand side. “What have you got to lose?”

_You help me, I’ll help you. What do you have to argue with?_

“And what do you want from me in exchange?” Wirt asked, taking the first few steps toward her.

Something that might have been amusement lit upon her face. “Oh, you are catching on quickly! I guess you’re not so dumb after all. You will provide me a moving perch if I get tired. I need to get back to Adelaide, so bringing you to her works two-fold. You might walk slower than I can fly, but I get tired easily.” She waited for him to catch up before diving into the forest.

Wirt followed after, pushing aside branches that clung to his pants and his cloak. “Wow, okay, don’t worry, I don’t need a path to follow.” He tried not to think about what could be lurking in the dark, even though the daylight didn’t seem to be dimming any. He bet that if he looked at his phone, it would still read 8:32 PM.

“Paths can be dangerous,” Beatrice provided cryptically and kept flying. “Follow as closely as you can and you’ll be safe.”

He swallowed down the question that lingered on the tip of his tongue and gathered his cloak up in his arms. As he hurried behind her, watching where he stepped, he realized that his shoes were two different colors.

When... did that happen?


	4. Chapter 4

An entire lifetime away, leagues upon leagues that no mortal could dream of crossing, a boy gasped for air as he pulled himself out of the nearly frozen lake. Every single inch of him burned with chill, limbs trembling that he could barely latch onto a root or a stone to advance him one more inch. His cloak clung to his skin-and-bones frame, a literal wet blanket.

Mouth gaping open like a fish, he inhaled lungful after lungful of air.

And when realization settled it, a slow grin spread wide across his face. “I made it. I made it back.”

“Wirt!!”

His head jerked to the side, though that made the dark earth whirl beneath him and he slid back towards the surface of the lake. Through the growing haze, he spotted a group of shadows running toward him, flashlight beam cutting through the darkness.

Warm hands landed on him, heaved him up the embankment. Distantly, he could hear a girl saying, _Be okay. Please be okay. Wirt, promise me._

And all he could think was _I made it_.

 


	5. Chapter 5

“I have a question.” 

Beatrice grunted and nestled deeper into her feathers. If she kept her eyes closed, she could ignore the jostling rise and fall that his shoulder caused. It was such a small, bony shoulder. “What is it? I’m trying to rest here.” 

She could hear the huff of breath he made in frustration, but he didn’t respond right away. Either he was going to drop the subject or he was choosing his words carefully. 

“What is Adelaide like?” 

This made her open her eyes. In her tiny chest, her heart beat so quickly she thought it might burst. “She’s a witch,” she said, because it was true, and because she couldn’t think of a better answer to give. 

“What? That doesn’t explain anything.” 

“It explains plenty.” 

“Then is she green? Does she have warts on her hook nose? Does she cackle and bake little children into pies?” 

“No. I don’t know. No, of course not.” 

Wirt made the frustrated huff again. “I just want to know if she’s going to help me get home or not. You’re not being very convincing.” 

Beatrice shot him a look from the corner of her eyes, but all she could see was his chin -- still smooth with youth and a delayed response to puberty. Out of all the kids to wind up here, it had to be this one, looking like a taller-than-average-gnome (or a slightly-shorter-than-average-nerd). “Adelaide is a good witch.” 

“So like Glinda?” 

“Who?” 

Wirt fiddled with his cloak for a moment and pulled out the small device he called a phone. But all he did was hold it out in his hand, then sighed and put it away. “Never mind. I don’t reception out here. It’s from a story. There’s the Wicked Witch of the West, and then there’s the Good Witch Glinda who helps Dorothy find her way.” 

“Sure, then like Glinda. She wants to help you get home. Now how about less talking and faster walking? It’s going to take us ages to get there if you keep up this pace.” Beatrice settled back into her feathers and was about to close her eyes again when she realized that he had stopped. “I said _more_ not _less_ walking.” 

He reached up and scooped her off his shoulder, ignoring her squawk of protest. “But why does she want to help me get home?” 

“Can’t you just accept a free ticket out of the Unknown?” 

“Why haven’t you accepted it?” 

Beatrice opened her beak, ready to snap back with something that would undoubtedly be witty and clever, but the words didn’t immediately come. Instead, a half-formed sound trickled out and she knew that it was too late to cover up her delay. 

“Beatrice?” Wirt held her closer to his face, but it was enough so that she could peck his nose in frustration. His hands fell away and her wings barely managed to keep her aloft at the sudden lack of a perch. “Ouch! What was that for?” 

“For asking dumb personal questions. I’m not here to be your friend. I’m here to be your guide.” 

His dark eyes regarded her with a degree of doubt, but she couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t being very convincing. 

Beatrice sighed and rolled her eyes. “I can’t leave the Unknown, okay? I’m not like you.”

“No, you’re a bird.” 

“I’m not--!” she started, but had to take a deep breath to calm herself down. It was no use arguing. “Sure, if that’s what you want to mark as the difference between us, then fine.” 

Wirt pulled his hands back. He was frowning, looking quite put upon, but far from threatening with the cone hat and his nose red from her pecking. “What’s what supposed to mean?”

She moved to sit on his hat, causing the tip of the cone to bend slightly under her slight weight, but still enough to keep her out of his reach. “Don’t worry about it, okay? Like I told you earlier, Adelaide of the Pasture is willing to go against the Beast in order to get you home.” 

“How is she going against the Beast?” 

“I don’t know the details! I’m just a messenger. I came to help you get to her house so she can help you.” She hugged her wings close to her body, stubbornly wishing that she could have arms and fingers again -- to grab and hold and strangle something out of frustration. 

Wirt started walking again without prompting. Ah, so he did have some motivation of his own after all. 

After minutes passed, and the unchanging scenery passed, and who knows how much time really passed, Beatrice said, “Have a little faith.” 

Even though Wirt grunted in response, she had no idea if she meant to address him or herself.


	6. Chapter 6

“Wirt! Wirt, are you okay?” 

Everything was considerably more warm than he remembered being last. Also, very heavy. His head was heavy, his arms were heavy, his eyes were heavy. But his heart was light, oh so very light, and it beat out a quick tattoo inside of his ribcage. 

His heavy tongue moved in his mouth, and a heavy, thick sound trickled from his barely open lips. 

“Ah! He speaks!” 

Someone pried his eyes open and shined a bright penlight into them. He groaned, and at his side, his fingers twitched in an attempt to knock the hand away. Bodies were far more effort than he first took them to be. 

The light disappeared for a blissful second, then reappeared in his other eye. “His pupils are responsive,” a man’s voice said. “That’s a good sign.” 

“How did he end up in the lake?” A woman’s voice, bordering on tears. 

A little boy answered. “He was going on an adventure! Up and over the wall! But then he fell and tumbled head over heels!” 

“Greg, how many times have I told you two not to play by the lake?” Her words quivered and nearly broke. 

Finally, he peeled his eyes open of his own accord and found himself staring at the bright lights on the ceiling. Another groan fell from his mouth, and his hands lifted to rub his eyes. There were bandages around both hands, and a soft beeping coming from somewhere to his left. 

“Wirt!” 

He peeked out from beneath his fingers and let his brain take in what he was seeing. A woman and a man, his hands on her shoulders and her hands covering her mouth. A little boy with a tea kettle in his grip. A girl, off to the side and in the corner, her dark skin ashen and eyes wide in fear. “Hey?” he managed, wondering if that was an appropriate response. 

The woman sobbed and flung her arms around him. “Oh, honey, I was so worried about you.” 

“I’m okay.” His brain scrambled for more words and identities that he knew he should know. “I’m okay, Mom.” 

“I know what will make you even better!” 

“Greg, don’t give him any candy right now.” 

A lollipop was lobbed over his mother’s shoulder and landed right in his lap all the same. “But you get a lollipop when you go to the doctor’s office, and we’re at the doctor’s office! So he needs to get a lollipop!” 

“Logical as always,” Wirt said and managed a smile. “How long have I been here?” 

His mom smoothed her hand over his hair, perched on the edge of his bed. “A couple of hours. Are you feeling okay?” 

He considered this question, because it was a loaded question. “I sort of hurt all over. Everything feels very heavy.” Even propped up against the pillows was an effort. 

“You dislocated your shoulder and got pretty banged up. Not to mention hit your head pretty hard, and that tumble into the lake didn’t do you any good.” The doctor, who stood on the other side of the bed, watched the machines instead of him. “You were pretty touch and go for a long time after you arrived, but you pulled through.” 

Again, he managed a smile because it felt like the appropriate response. 

His step-father clapped his hands together and then grasped Greg’s shoulders. “Alright, we should let you rest. And it’s this little elephant’s bedtime.” 

Greg made a noise that might have been an elephant trumpeting as he followed after his step-father. “Goodnight, Wirt! I’ll see you in the morning!” 

His mother brushed his hair back and placed a kiss on his forehead. “We’ll be back to get you in the morning. Will you be okay here by yourself?” 

He glanced at the doctor, and the doctor glanced up from his charts. “He’ll be fine. The nurses will check up on him throughout the night to make sure there is no lasting effects from the concussion and the lake.” 

With one final kiss on his forehead, she rose from the side of the bed and followed the doctor out of the room. 

It took several moments for Wirt to realize that there was someone still there, standing silently in the corner. “Sara...?” 

She bit her lip and pushed herself away from the wall. “You really scared me.” 

Uncertain what he should say, he remained silent. 

She didn’t approach the bed. She simply wavered in her spot. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Wirt, I thought you were going to die.” 

It didn’t seem like a good time to tell her that he wanted to die, that he might as well have, that he almost did. “I’m sorry.” 

It took a long time, as they watched each other in silence, before he realized that she was crying. Tears streamed down her cheeks, shoulders still, stubbornness in every line of her expression. 

“You made a very cute clown,” he said, and Sara laughed in surprise. 

She scrubbed her eyes, and suddenly she was crying for real. “I was a zombie clown, idiot.” 

“Oh. You were a cute zombie clown.” 

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” she said between hiccups and sobs. 

“Me too.” 

“Don’t ever do that again.” 

“I don’t really plan on it.” 

“Good.” She turned to leave. 

“Sara?” 

She stopped, back to him, shoulders shaking every few seconds. 

He didn’t know what he wanted to ask her. There were a lot of feelings in his chest that were just as heavy as his body. Strange and painful in a way he didn’t even know was possible. “Will you come again tomorrow?” 

She glanced at him from over her shoulder, and his stomach did a strange little flip. “Yeah,” she said and smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

When she left, and he was alone in his room, Wirt closed his eyes and studied every little weight and ache of his body until he fell asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

They walked for what felt like a very long time.

There was little talking beyond Beatrice’s constant snapping at him to hurry up. She would rest, on occasion -- perching on his shoulder or his hat -- but he kept walking.

He walked and walked and walked. When he would think about how much he had walked, his legs would turn to jelly and he would ask if he could take a break.

But then Beatrice would bite his ear or tell him, _there’s a clearing up ahead we’ll stop there and you can rest_. Either the clearing never came or, when they got to it, he kept walking without thinking about it.

His stomach would grumble when he wondered how long it had been since he last ate, and he would ask if there was anything in the forest to eat.

 _You can eat when we get to a town_ , Beatrice would tell him. They never reached a town.

She never looked at him if she could help it.

His phone never got service or dropped below 83%.

There were a lot of things that did happen that shouldn’t have, or didn’t happen that should have, and through it all, he kept walking.

( _The Unknown_ , Wirt thought. _How appropriate._ )

* * *

He kept walking where he was told to go until, suddenly, he stepped in a pumpkin. And when he looked up, he spotted gables painted with the same autumnal colors as the forest.

His heart jumped and twirled in excitement. “A town,” he said, overjoyed at the idea that he could finally rest and eat.

“No--” Beatrice started, but he didn’t listen to her.

He kept walking, but this time, there was a bounce to his step.

* * *

The pumpkins surrounded him, grinning Jack-O’-Lantern faces bearing down as he stumbled backwards.

“I didn’t mean-- I didn’t steal anything--” he tried, but the words kept jumbling themselves up in his mouth and making no sense.  

The largest of all the pumpkin people, Enoch, reached for him with the strange tendrils that might have been vines at one point. “Boy, you’ve got the Beast’s mark on you.”

“What? No I don’t.” He didn’t have any marks on him.

One of the vines touched his forehead. Wirt felt nothing but a leafy brush against skin. “You might as well stay here,” Enoch said.

“Well, he can’t.” Beatrice hopped on his hat, feathers ruffled from where the villagers had grasped her earlier. “Adelaide has laid claim to him, and she’s going to help him get home.”

If the pumpkins could make expressions, it might have been slightly less creepy when Enoch and the others started to laugh. “So you’ve got Adelaide of the Pasture and the Beast of the Forest fighting for you? It would be so much easier to just stay here, wouldn’t it, boy?”

Wirt looked around, at the nearly-grinning pumpkin faces surrounding him. They hadn’t actually hurt him. And, admittedly, they were the first living things he had come across besides Beatrice. His feet ached and his stomach grumbled. 

“You know... it might not be so bad...” he muttered to himself.

“Wirt!”

He sighed and held up a hand for Beatrice to hop onto. She glared at him when he lowered her to face level. “I can’t just keep walking. At least let’s spend the night.”

“Oh, there’s no time for rest right now, boy.” Enoch swooped down to get on his level as well, and the giant pumpkin’s wide, unseeing eyes bore straight into him. “You’ve still got to face punishment for your crimes.”

“Punishment?” Wirt and Beatrice said at the same time.

“Yes...” He drew out the one syllable, the hiss of a snake coming through all reedy from behind the pumpkin flesh. “Just a couple of hours of manual labor. Helping in the fields where we need you to. Then you can rest and eat, if it’s what you desire.”

His stomach grumbled in response. He had stepped in one of their pumpkins and caused quite a disturbance at their festival. “I think that sounds fair.”

Beatrice sighed and rolled her eyes. “This is all on you, Wirt. All on you.”

* * *

“I take it back,” Wirt choked, staring down at the skull’s empty eye sockets. “I take it all back. I don’t want to stay.”

“Told you so,” Beatrice said, and immediately started to work on picking the tiny lock around her ankle.

* * *

The skeleton moved, the creak of old bones grating together filling the small ditch he stood in. A shallow, unmarked grave -- nothing beyond a small overturned pot with a barely discernable number. He tried not to think about how easily he would fit in the space if he laid down.

Wirt choked down the scream that wanted to claw out of his throat. The same way the skeleton crawled out of his grave. Inviting the dead to wander freely was not part of his job description. (What was his job description?)

Against any law of nature, the skeleton started to assemble a new body out of pumpkins. The other gourd-wearing individuals welcomed him in with open arms and carved-out grins.

Enoch approached him a moment later, as he sat on the edge of the grave torn between burying his face in his hands and staring in horror at the dancing pumpkin people. “Now, boy, about your accommodations for the night...”

“I don’t want to die,” Wirt said, the words tumbling from his mouth before he could get a chance to stop them. They burned on his tongue, and tasted of bitter spices.

“Die?” The pumpkin canted to the side, and somehow or another managed to actually look confused. “That is an inevitable course of life, but I have a feeling that’s not what you mean.”

Wirt shook his head, unable to actually force his voice to work.

“We won’t kill you, boy, though I can’t promise the same for the others out there. Are you sure you don’t want to stay?”

“We’ll be moving on, thanks,” Beatrice said, voice clipped, tiny talons pricking into Wirt’s skull.

The giant pumpkin man reared back and shrugged his vines for arms. “It’s all the same to us, in the end. Pottsfield will have space for you, whenever you decide to join us.”

Beatrice tightened her grip, and Wirt took that as his cue to undertake the labor of rising to his feet. “Bye.”

“Thank you,” Wirt added, out of habit, and Enoch inclined his head in return.

* * *

They were a mile or more or less -- they were some unknown distance from Pottsfield when Wirt came to an abrupt halt. His eyes popped open and a startled yelp leaked from his mouth.

“What are you doing?” The bird fluttered in front of his face, nearly smacking him several times with her wings. “We have to keep walking!”

“I never got anything to eat.”

Beatrice performed the bird version of a face-palm. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first few chapters are going to rehash canon, just without Greg (alternating with chapters of Wirt back at home). I promise it'll pick up soon ;)


End file.
